Between Safety and Adventure I Choose Safety

Several times in his autobiography Craig Ferguson said, “Between safety and adventure I choose adventure.” Isn’t that a great line? I think nothing could be less descriptive of my life than that.

That may be a little too harsh. After all I could make a fairly strong argument that I’ve lived an adventuresome life. I did college and Europe. I got drunk for the first time in the shadow of the tower in Pisa. I’ve flown all over the country by myself. Took a ten month sabbatical and cycled over 2,000 miles in the upstate New York county where I was born. More than once I rode a hundred miles in a day. Worked swing on fourth stack of Aggie Bonfire. Studied Soto Zen Buddhism, sat Zazen at the Austin Zen Center and done a weekend retreat at the Syracuse Zen Center. I got a tattoo on my 27th birthday. I’ve done stuff.

However, I still contend I choose safety over adventure. Take working stack for instance. I was about four stories in the air sitting on a swing made out of rope tied to the top of center pole and a 2x12. I was cautious about it though. I didn’t do anything risky while I was up there. I remember some random guy asking me if I was scared. He saw me double check each handhold before I moved. I was not scared. I’m not scared of much of anything. I was being cautious - choosing safety.

I’m not contending this is a bad thing, but it does explain my behavior and goes a long way toward predicting my future. When given a choice if you always take the safer of the two options you could have a good life, but it probably won’t be that successful. In life if you do not risk much you will not gain much. This can explain why even though I have brilliant ideas and I’m very good at whatever I put my mind too I am not wildly successful. I don’t know that this is something I need to change about myself. After all success by the world’s standards isn’t really success at all.